[aw] Copilot Agent PR Analysis has stale lock file

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Assessment

Difficulty
1/5
Estimated time
Under an hour
Newbie friendliness
88/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Clearly specified
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
github-actions, go
Domain
build-system, ci-cd, devtools

Research direction

Start with .github/workflows/copilot-agent-analysis.md and the failed run's Check workflow lock file step. Run gh aw compile, then gh aw compile --validate to regenerate and verify the matching .lock.yml file. Done means the compiled lock file is committed and the workflow no longer reports a stale lock mismatch.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

agentic-workflows cascade-suspected
Workflow Failure

Workflow: Copilot Agent PR Analysis
Branch: main
Run: https://github.com/github/gh-aw/actions/runs/35638426765

[!WARNING]
Lock File Out of Sync: The workflow could not start because its compiled lock file no longer matches the source markdown.

This means the workflow's .md file was edited but gh aw compile was not run afterwards to regenerate the corresponding .lock.yml file. The agent is prevented from running against a stale configuration to avoid unexpected behaviour.

To fix, recompile the workflow:

gh aw compile

Then commit and push the updated .lock.yml file.

More ways to recompile

Using the gh-aw MCP server (if configured):

{ "tool": "compile", "arguments": { "validate": true } }

Recompile all workflows at once:

gh aw compile --all

Verify the result:

gh aw compile --validate
How to investigate the mismatch

The workflow run logs contain a verbose debug pass that shows exactly what was hashed. Search the Check workflow lock file step logs for lines starting with [hash-debug] to see:

  • The raw frontmatter text that was used as input
  • Any imported files that were included in the hash
  • The canonical JSON that was fed to SHA-256
  • The resulting hash value

This makes it easy to spot accidental whitespace changes, encoding differences, or import path drift.

This mismatch can also happen on a fresh install (even without any manual edits) if gh aw add <path>@<ref> could not resolve the ref to an exact commit SHA during installation. In that case, rerun the add command with an exact SHA (or retry when API/rate-limit conditions recover), then recompile:

gh aw add <path>@<exact-sha>
gh aw compile
How to disable this check

[!CAUTION]
Disabling this check means the agent can run against an out-of-date compiled workflow. Only disable it if you have an alternative mechanism to keep lock files in sync.

Set stale-check: false in the on: section of your workflow frontmatter:

on:
  issues:
    types: [opened]
  stale-check: false

After editing, recompile the workflow: gh aw compile

Action Required

Assign this issue to an agent to debug and fix the issue.

Debug with any coding agent

Use this prompt with any coding agent (GitHub Copilot, Claude, Gemini, etc.):

Debug the agentic workflow failure using https://raw.githubusercontent.com/github/gh-aw/main/debug.md

The failed workflow run is at https://github.com/github/gh-aw/actions/runs/35638426765
Manually invoke the agent

Debug this workflow failure using your favorite Agent CLI and the agentic-workflows prompt.

[!TIP]

Stop reporting this workflow as a failure

To stop a workflow from creating failure issues, set report-failure-as-issue: false in its frontmatter:

safe-outputs:
  report-failure-as-issue: false

Generated from Copilot Agent PR Analysis · ◷

  • expires on Sep 22, 2026, 6:28 AM UTC
Dominant language
Go
Stars
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Forks
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Avg merge
5h 55m
Merged PRs (30d)
771

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

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